Chapter 23: Will My Armor Kill Me?

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"Why does Zhou Cheng think there's no problem with stealing blueprints from Stane?"

Tony Stark, resting his chin on his hand, started to seriously consider this question.

The other had just shown a certain level of moral baseline.

He felt that as the protagonist, he should not stoop to theft.

But why change attitudes when it comes to Stane?

What is the difference between stealing from himself and stealing from Stane?

"It's Stane!"

Tony Stark quickly arrived at this answer.

Comparing the two cases, there is no difference from start to finish.

The only difference lies in the object of the action.

One subject is himself, while the other is Stane.

That's all.

Thus, the direct cause of Zhou Cheng's completely different attitudes is Stane!

The logic and causality of this are so obvious that they present themselves straightforwardly without the need for analysis.

So, the question arises.

What exactly did Stane do to make Zhou Cheng treat him differently?

[Forget it, better just wash up and go to bed, it's all pointless fuss.]

[Even if he got his hands on the blueprints, they wouldn't be of much use.]

[After all, the truly crucial arc reactor isn't even on the blueprints, that's key.]

[Without the reactor, the armor is just a pile of motionless metal, utterly useless.]

[If it's made prettily, maybe it could be sold as a toy or something, but the original Mark?]

[I'd say it's just scrap metal!]

Heh.

A mocking smile couldn't help appearing on the corner of Tony Stark's mouth.

Just thinking about if you're considering eating crap.

You think you can just steal and take what belongs to Tony Stark?

Blueprints smeared on your face would be useless!

The notebook had it right – what is at the core of the Iron Man armor?

Undoubtedly, it's the power source.

Without solving this issue, everything else is empty.

And the core technology for the power source, without a doubt, resides in the brain of Tony Stark.

However...

The Mark armor uses the arc reactor as a power source?

There's one of those in Stark Tower, it's been sitting there for who knows how many years.

Just a piece of décor, utterly useless.

But it seems that the other me managed to miniaturize it and successfully used it in the armor.

"Miniaturizing that big guy as a power source is a brilliant idea!"

"Worthy of me!"

"This is indeed a very promising research direction!"

Tony Stark's eyes lit up again.

[Not to mention not having the arc reactor blueprints, even if you had them, you shouldn't want them!]

[That reactor is deadly!]

[Tony nearly perished in his own armor, even going so far as preparing for the eventuality.]

[If it wasn't for the crucial moment when a new element was researched, Tony would've definitely bitten the dust!]

Is the reactor deadly?

Tony Stark was slightly taken aback but immediately realized.

Yes, the arc reactor uses palladium!

Palladium is highly toxic to humans.

If one indeed used a miniaturized arc reactor to power an Iron Man armor, so close to the body...

One or two times might be okay, but over a long period, it would indeed poison someone.

In severe cases, it could indeed lead to death.

But this presupposes prolonged poisoning.

This means the other me must have worn the armor too frequently, leading to the worst-case scenario."Why?"

"Why not take off the armor?"

Tony Stark couldn't understand.

The toxicity of palladium was indeed severe, but it wasn't inevitable.

In fact, avoiding it was quite simple – why not just stop wearing the armor?

Yet the other Tony Stark preferred to exacerbate his own poisoning day after day, willing to sacrifice his life rather than remove his armor.

Why, on earth?

Without necessary information, Tony Stark could not come up with an explanation.

So he simply stopped worrying about it.

Such a thing was not about to reoccur with him.

Since that other self could synthesize a new element, then he certainly could too!

Once the new element was synthesized, all problems would be gone.

It was that simple.

[So it's still Howard who's impressive, like he could predict the future.]

[He left behind key clues years ago, guiding the synthesis of the new element.]

[That act played out like a 'cross-temporal rescue', saving his life.]

[Incontestable, truly worthy of being his old man!]

So this.

Was this what the journal referred to when it said his father, who had died so many years ago, had saved his life?

Was this the truth?

The question had haunted Tony Stark for so long, and now the answer was revealed in this moment.

But Tony Stark didn't agree at all.

This was just a joke, wasn't it?

Even if his father was incredible and extraordinary.

How could he, years after his death, still guide the creation of a new element?

Totally ridiculous!

Just as Zhou Cheng mocked in his journal, could his father have foreseen the future?

And "cross-temporal rescue", what, is this fiction?

So it's pretty clear.

It's definitely the great Tony Stark who delved into an extensive and in-depth study of the Arc Reactor to resolve the palladium issue.

Eventually, with his own intelligence, he synthesized the new element.

It had nothing to do with his father Howard.

So why did the owner of the journal, Zhou Cheng, say it was under Howard's guidance?

Without a doubt, Zhou Cheng was a die-hard fan of Howard!

The guy had repeatedly shown admiration for his father.

And since the Arc Reactor was created by Howard, some of the technical documents were undoubtedly left by Howard.

It was by studying those documents left by Howard that Tony Stark succeeded.

So.

That's why Zhou Cheng beautified it as Howard's achievement, right?

In reality, this matter had nothing to do with Howard at all.

It was the great Tony Stark, relying on his own intelligence!

Yes, that must be it!

[It was also because of this "cross-temporal rescue" that he reconciled with his father.]

[He finally understood that for all these years, he had been misunderstanding his father.]

[Howard was not the uncaring person he thought he was.]

[On the contrary, Howard's love for him was deeply profound.]

Zhou Cheng really was Howard's hardcore fan, wasn't he?

Tony Stark dismissed the thought with a curl of his lip.

Otherwise, why would he whitewash his father again and again?

His old man, "deeply in love" with him?

Please!

Did he, the son, not know how Howard truly was?

That guy was extremely harsh on him, had never said words like "I love you."

Even the happiest time for him was the day he sent Tony off to boarding school.

Was that called "deep love"?